A MILLION YEARS IN A DAY – BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hello, you look nice today. Have you done something new with your hair? No, seriously, it really suits you.

Anyway, the reason you’re here is hopefully because you enjoyed my book and perhaps want to know more about some of the things I mentioned? I really hope that’s the case, because that’s the raison d’etre for my entire career. My job is to be a go-between; to demystify the supposedly boring or irrelevant subject of history, and to make it accessible to all. For me, success isn’t having you read my book, it’s seeing you then want to read someone else’s afterwards. To achieve this, I have tried to scoop up a huge amount of information from hundreds of books, journals and articles, and then framed all that information in an easy-to-read book.

But I didn’t discover all those things myself. All the credit for their discovery must go to the expert historians beavering away in their own fields of enquiry. History is a collaborative discipline – a vast edifice of constantly changing knowledge – and it is constructed by countless squadrons of tireless scholars who focus on their own fields and then unselfishly share their findings with the rest of us.

In case you’re curious, I was initially planing on a career as a medieval literature specialist. My intended PhD was going to be on humour and satire in Middle English, but I couldn’t afford it. A career in telly won my soul instead. More recently, my own specialised area of interest has been the slave-turned-boxer, Bill Richmond. After 5 years of archival research I had hoped to write his first biography but I could not get sufficient publisher interest, and instead was commissioned to write A Million Years In A Day. I’m now very pleased to see that Luke Williams has written it instead – Richmond is a fascinating character, and deserves to be better known.

But, though I am interested in pretty much anything historical, I have never been an expert in anything other than Bill Richmond’s life, or medieval fart jokes. To tell the story of toilets, underpants, timekeeping and the rest, I was indebted to other historians. It’s only thanks to their superhuman curiosity, diligence, and talent that I was even remotely capable of scribbling this book.

A Million Years In A Day was not intended as a definitive history of daily life, but as a tasting menu of lovely historical morsels that I’ve gleaned over a decade of professional curiosity. But, if you want to go deeper into the detail, I’ve included a suggested reading list of other fantastic books worthy of your perusal. As corny as it sounds, researching this book has changed the way I think about the world, and I hope it’s going to do the same for you too. Plus, you might find yourself doing better at pub quizzes!

Below that, you’ll also find a much more lengthy bibliography. It’s not listing absolutely everything I read, as I had a laptop crisis that lost some of my early notes, but it’s hopefully good enough.

So, thanks for buying this book and embarking on this journey of discovery. I hope it surprised, delighted, and puzzled you as much as it did me.

“Study of the Molecular Basis of Tame and Aggressive Behavior in the Silver Fox Model” International Collaborative Study between The James A. Baker Institute for Animal Health, Cornell University, USA; The Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia; and Department of Biology, University of Utah, USA http://cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/ccgr/behaviour/History.htm

De Die Natale, by Censorinus translated into English by William Maude, New York: The Cambridge Encyclopedia Co., 1900;,

The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Franklin

The Waste of Daylight, by William Willett, 1907

The Diary of Samuel Pepys, by Samuel Pepys

Natural History, by Pliny the Elder

Or, the History of Cold Bathing: Both Ancient and Modern. In Two Parts. The First, written by Sir John Floyer, of Litchfield, by John Floyer

The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens, by Charles Dickens

The Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes by Edwin Chadwick

The Principal Works of St. Jerome, By St. Jerome

The Parallel Lives, by Plutarch

Paedogogus, Book 3, by Clement of Alexandria

The Risala of Ibn Fadlan, by Ibn Fadlan

De Medicina, by Aulus Cornelius Celsus

The Travels of Marco Polo, by Marco Polo

The Histories, by Herodotus, George Rawlinson, ed. and tr., vol. 3, Book 4, Chapters 2-36, 46-82. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1885

The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine, edited by Monica H. Green

Historia Vitae et Mortis, by Francis Bacon

Lord Chesterfield’s Letters, by David Roberts (Editor)

The Female’s Best Friend ; or, The Young Woman’s Guide to Virtue,Economy, and Happiness ; containing a complete modern System of Cookery, formed upon Principles of Economy for Private Families by John Armstrong, 1817

Catechism Of Health For The Use Of Schools, And For Domestic Instruction, By Bernhard Christoph Faust, translated from the German by J.H. Basse in 1794

The Ladies’ Guide In Health and Disease, by John Harvey Kellogg, 1893

The King James Bible

Women In The Assembly by Aristophanes

The Deipnosophists by Athenaeus

The Clouds, by Aristophanes

History of Rome, Book XXXIX, by Livy

The Germania, by Tacitus

The Annals of Connacht, author unknown

De Re Rustica, by Junius Moderatus Columella

De Cannibus Britannicus by John Caius

De Proprietibus Rerum by Bartholemus Anglicus

Essays, by Michel de Montaigne

Passions of the Soul, by Rene Descartes

The Library of History, by Diodorus Siculus

The City of God, St Augustine of Hippo

The Life of Charlemagne, by the Monk of St Gall (AKA Notger the Stammerer)

Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations 1851 (Cambridge Library Collection – British and Irish History, 19th Century)

American Nervousness by George Beard

The London Tradesman: Being a Compendious View of All the Trades, Professions, Arts, Both Liberal and Mechanic, Now Practised in the Cities of London and Westminster. Calculated for the Information of Parents, and Instruction of Youth in Their Choice of Business by Richard Campbell, 1747

Female Beauty, As Preserved and Improved by Regimen, Cleanliness and Dress, by Mrs A Walker, 1837